Tuesday, December 04, 2007

those love songs sung so suddenly

in a comment from the previous post, i parenthetically remarked that dating involves more than simply the assessing and acquiring of potential mates. i may be wrong about that. in some sense, everything we do is motivated by the possibility of sex (or motivated by the consequences of sex as in the raising of children). i mean, it's all in our genes, right? but maybe that's a bit reductionist.

what was my point?

have you ever been on a date where both of you knew, pretty much the minute the date starts, that there was no possibility of sex between the two of you either that night or ever?

(is this a fairly normal occurrence on blind dates? if so, i think it's because who you're attracted to is a complicated matter, one you have a difficult time articulating to yourself. so how are your friends and family going to choose someone you'll like?)

one time i was set up on a blind-date by my friend jenny. she set me up with someone in her institute class. here's how the pre-date phone call went:

her: hello?me: hello?her: who is this?me: brian. who's this?her: sarah.brian: hi sarah. your classmate, jenny, said i should call you.sarah: oh yes. she thought we should hang out sometime, so i wanted to ask you: would you like to come with me to this cinco de mayo party on friday?brian: sure.

during this part of the phone conversation, we hammered out the details of the date and i received directions to her friend's house where we'd meet before the cinco de mayo party. i wrote the directions to her house on my hand in magic marker. here's the end of the phone conversation:

sarah:how do you know jenny?brian: i met her through work.sarah: she is so great; she has the strongest testimony.brian: i wonder why she's never bore it to me.sarah: should we start to get to know each other now or wait until the date?brian: we could start now. [long pause.] what's your favorite beatles' record?sarah: sgt. peppers.

i forgot what else we talked about. as i hung up the phone, i do remember thinking we probably weren't going to hit it off. i think she felt the same way.

so the next day i'm driving around some neighborhood in sugarhouse checking street names and house numbers against the information i have markered on my hand. i finally arrive at what i think is the house. i check the number on the house: 628. i check the number on my hand: 628. right then a cadillac pulls into the driveway of 628. someone's grandparents get out of the car. i don't want to walk up to the door with these grandparents so i pretend to be looking for something in the back seat of my car. but grandpa's got a walker and i don't know how long i can reasonably fumble through these papers in my back seat without drawing attention to myself. i should just get out now, i think to myself. out of the date? probably, but instead i get out of the car and walk to the door. i'm half way up the driveway when the grandparents are let in.

the lady at the door: hello. you must be brian. sarah's inside.

so then i'm introduced around. there's sarah, sarah's friend, sarah's friend's parents, sarah's friend's grandparents, sarah's friend's younger brother, sarah's friend's boyfriend, another friend of sarah's and that girl's boyfriend. we still had 25 minutes until the enchiladas would be finished cooking. then sarah's friend's younger brother's prom date showed up. then everyone went out back to take room date photos leaving grandpa and i in the living room. we were watching a basketball game. i think it was a playoff game between the kings and the lakers back when kobe was just a kid. then grandpa fell asleep. with everyone still in the backyard and looking to be back there for a while, i knew what i had to do. i got up, walked out the front door, jumped in my car and drove off.

See-- that is why we go on blind dates. To have stories like that one. Thanks for living through the awkwardness. Did you ever talk to Sarah again? And what did Jenny have to say about the whole thing?

So i agree for the most part that you can tell pretty quickly if there is the potential for sex. But, there have been times when I have not at all been attracted to someone (physically), and swear I would never date them. We end up hanging out, I get to know him better, and then one day we kiss and all I want to do is make babies with him. So you never know.

Here's my question. Why doesn't the "setting up" party just invite two people to do something with him or her and small group (where people aren't paired off) and then see what the two people think. That way there's already exposure, you can tell if there's some attraction, etc.

to be honest, i actually didn't leave when i said i did. i thought about it, but was to nervous to just walk out the front door. so i watched the basketball game by myself for twenty minutes. i think the kings won (but they ended up losing the playoff series). then we headed over to the cinco de mayo party. the party was a disaster. sarah didn't talk to me and barely introduced me to anyone. so i'm at party with a bunch of strangers and i'm not outgoing so i just stood around like an idiot. after an hour and a half of this, i caught a ride to my car with some other people who were leaving the party. in other words, i should have left when i said i did.

and the whole thing about being solely motivated by sex and knowing whether or not your attracted to people the moment you meant them was supposed to be a joke. except i'm not sure how it's funny.